Episode Four and a Half
by odditycollector
Summary: Because something must have happened between 'The Medusa Bug' and 'The TIFF.' Bob & Dot.


_This is the sort of thing that comes of watching the episodes in order, I suppose. *Something* happened between 1x04 (Medusa Bug) and 1x05 (The TIFF), and what is fic for if not finding such answers?_

**4.5 -Interlude**

Bob shuffled into the room and flopped onto the couch. "Well," he said, "he's powered down." 

Dot chuckled. "I *did* warn you." 

"Yeah," Bob said. "But I figured, with all the excitement…" 

"We're talking about *Enzo,* Bob. He lives on excitement like the rest of us live on energy." 

Bob didn't respond, he just rested his head on the back of the couch and closed his eyes. 

"What did you do?" Dot asked. "I didn't hear screaming, so I guess you didn't sing him to submission." 

"Hey!" Bob opened his eyes just enough to glare at her. "Actually," he said, "he wanted me to tell him a story." 

"Oh?" 

Bob managed to nod without lifting his head. "I told him about the time there was a power surge at the academy and I got trapped in a game sim." He sighed. "And then I told him again… and again…." 

Dot looked more annoyed than amused. "You shouldn't keep regaling him with tales of the Supercomputer," she said. "It's not good for him." 

"Why not?" He straightened slightly so he could face her. "He seems a little too compiled for *The Null Prince* or *Deep Red and the Seven Binomes.*" 

"It's just…." She shook her head. "Never mind." 

Bob shrugged and leaned back again. "Sure has been an interesting cycle," he said. "A game played on Pogo sticks? That's a new one. Plus the whole viral infection thing…." 

Dot looked down for a moment. "It's a good thing you were here," she said softly. "If it wasn't for you, all of mainframe would be deleted right now." She placed her hand over his. "Thank… thank the User you came to us." 

He met her gaze, the unspoken *to me* evident in her face. There was something pained in his own stare, but then he sighed and shifted his focus to the ceiling. "That's what I'm here for," he said in a shakily jovial tone, but his expression was closed. 

"I guess so." Dot moved her hand and started to get up. "Do you want an energy shake or something?" she asked. "I can't promise it'll be as good as the Diner's, but –" 

Bob pushed her back into the couch. "Nuh-uh, you were actually relaxing. I'm not letting you go anywhere." 

"Bob! I've done *tons* of relaxing this cycle." 

He rolled his eyes. "You mean the five nanoseconds before the game dropped? This is the first time in seconds I haven't seen you worried about something." 

"Are you kidding? This second we've had a high level of game activity, and Enzo's programming stats always suffer when he's busy playing games; the data in sector one-oh-oh-oh has been recycled so much it's starting to degrade – and do you think *Megabyte's* about to do anything about it? The energy output levels in Baudway are five hundred percent above optimum, and we've already seen an unusual number of tears in the area –" 

"So?" Bob shrugged. "I mended them." 

"Plus, we've still got to run a complete system scan to make sure everything's processing properly after Hex's latest amusement, and Phong told me that thousands of nulls seemed to be missing when he ran a preliminary and –" 

Bob put a hand over her mouth. She stared at him in shock, but she had stopped talking so he removed the appendage. 

"-And the CPU's-" 

He put it back. Bob placed a finger to his own mouth and mimed silence. Dot glared at him, but it didn't look like she was about to start babbling again. He moved his hand before she tried to bite it. 

"You're going to drive yourself random," he told her. "Why do this to yourself?" 

"Because somebody has to," she said. Bob stared at her, not comprehending. She sighed. "How many sprites are left in this system, Bob? Me, Enzo, Phong… and then you. Phong has to make sure the system remains online and fully functional, and he protects the core, the archives, our PIDs - he serves as a medic if any binomes develop something their doctors don't recognize…." She shook her head. "And Enzo's just a little sprite. He shouldn't have to worry about anything but school." 

"I don't think he worries about anything," Bob said. Dot made an attempt to laugh, but she ended up just looking tired. She seemed suddenly young, like a small sprite who had been burdened with all the troubles of the Supercomputer. Bob wrapped an arm around her, and she leaned into his chest. "I could help," Bob offered. "Take over a few sectors…." 

This time she really did laugh. "Thanks, Bob. Really," she said between giggles. "But I think you'd better stick to your own function." 

"I could do it," he insisted. 

Dot tried to collect herself. "Okay," she said in a tight voice. "Sure, Bob. I'll give you Floating Point. That's always been the easiest to manage." 

"Cool!" He grinned at her. "In a couple seconds it'll be the smoothest running place in Mainframe. You won't believe it!" 

"Mmhmm," Dot still shook with barely suppressed laughter. "I believe that. Hand me my organizer?" 

Bob eyed the device, which was lying next to his feet on the short table in front of him. Grabbing it would mean sitting up, letting go of Dot, leaning forward…. 

"Glitch," Bob said. "Retrieve." With a rather annoyed sounding blip, the keytool formed a line which snagged the organizer and pulled it back. 

"That's so handy," said Dot, watching as Glitch returned to its original shape. 

"Your organizer, m'lady?" 

She took it from him and pressed a series of keys which brought up a scrolling page filled with ones and zeros and the occasional blurb of alphanumeric writing. "So, this is what I have scheduled about Floating Point," she told him. "I've set it to display the next two seconds – after that you'll probably want to make your own meetings." 

"Er… right. They look very important. All of them." His grin began to waver as he studied the display. "They must be, to be so early." 

"I'll go over the main ones," Dot said, pointing them out. "Department of energy. You'll be discussing plans for the new lines. As you know, floating point doesn't produce its own energy, and there were some concerns about the reliability of the old ones." 

"Okay." 

"And these are about landscaping. You're currently in the middle of a bidding war for some remodelling, and you have to watch that no one just undercuts and leaves us with second-rate work. Then, the culture group that wants to set up a display next second will have to submit a proposal. Make sure they don't block any high-traffic pathways or put up any eyesores – we had someone a couple minutes ago who built a huge purple cube, but luckily a *real* game came down and nullified it." 

"Sure." 

"This one's just Phong. There's been some trouble with zipboards over some of the sectors, and you're checking with him to make sure it isn't a problem with the power grid." 

"Great." 

"Now, next cycle…." Dot trailed off, unable to stop herself from giggling. "You should see your expression. You look like… like Hexadecimal just announced she wanted to have your baby." 

Bob stared at her. "Really, *really* disturbed?" 

"Terrified and queasy." She glanced up at him again. "Okay, now you look disturbed." 

"Really, *really* disturbed," he corrected her. He got up from the couch and paced the room a couple times. "Great, Dot. Thank you for *that* image." He shuddered. "Do you have any idea what it's going to be like, facing Hex with *that* thought?" He shook his head as if trying to empty it. "Is this what you process in your downtime?" 

"Aren't you glad now that I don't have any downtime?" Bob just continued staring at her. "It was a joke, Bob. Sorry, okay?" She didn't look very sorry. Bob eyed her suspiciously, but he sat down beside her again. 

"I guess this means I keep floating point?" she said. 

"See if I ever offer to do you a favour again," Bob grumbled. 

Dot smiled sweetly at him. "You know, Bob, someone who protests *that* much–" 

"Finish that sentence," Bob cut her off, "and I will think of something drastic to do to you." 

Dot leaned further into the couch, still smiling. They sat in silence for a while, until her grin and his look of disgust had both faded to other thoughts. "I really can try floating point, if you want," Bob finally said. 

Dot shook her head. "No," she said. "Your function is to mend and defend, not to plan and regulate. Mainframe needs someone to fight viruses and play games full time." 

"It's probably less full time than you'd think," Bob admitted. 

Dot sighed. "I don't even mind the work," she told him. "And I'm good at it. It's just…." She gestured. "And in a couple minutes, Enzo's probably going to want to be downloaded to the Supercomputer or, I don't know, somewhere." 

"Is that why you don't want me telling him about the academy?" Bob said. "Dot, I think Enzo's figured out that there's other systems in the Net." 

"I know. But ever since the-" she closed her eyed for a moment- "accident, he hasn't had any small sprites to play with. He doesn't know how to deal with feeling this… this…." 

"Lonely?" Bob suggested. 

She shook her head, but it wasn't to contradict him. "Mainframe needs him," she said. She looked away from Bob then, and he once again got the impression of a small sprite alone against the Net. "I need him," she whispered. 

He said, "Dot," but she didn't look at him. He put a hand against her cheek and tilted it so that she was facing him. "Dot, you're not alone." 

And after that it was impossible to tell whose lips pressed first, before she leaned into him and tasted the reminder of an energy shake, before he pressed her into the softness of the couch and ran a hand over her smooth dark hair. And it wasn't that long before that they didn't know each other except for once - the boy beside her hadn't been upgraded to 01 yet, but then small children always seem to compile fastest. They met for that first time in a disaster; she who had just lost everything wonderful about her life and he, no less bereaved, honorarily a guardian because where else in the Net was Glitch supposed to go after that? 

And he had walked through the first portal he had ever personally called and into that broken system; and she had stared, horrified and useless, at her world which was nothing but still crumbling rubble; and he had stood there in his cadet's uniform and fixed a few small tears instead of scanning for the virus that had caused so much destruction in a nanosecond; and she had blamed him even though she didn't really believe it, had flung herself at him for the same reason he had focused on the tears – he was there, and everything else was too big, too terrible, too out of control in a Net that cared nothing of the trials of two sprites. And she pressed into him, her chest against his, her thin fingers clinging to him as if closing her eyes and holding on would let the rest of the system disappear; and he held her as her movements became a desperate rhythm and there was nothing left to do because it didn't matter and nothing left to say because it didn't matter and if they were both lost in that moment, at least they were lost together. 

Dot got up and went into the shower room and stayed there for so long Bob was afraid something had happened to her. He finally went to the door and tried knocking, but she didn't respond. "Dot?" he called. He could hear the energy still running in the room, which was odd, because Dot was usually very concerned about energy usage. He knocked again. "Dot, if you don't answer, I'm coming in," he yelled. Silence, except for the sound of energy running against the floor. The door was sealed, so he said, "Glitch, lockpick," and a moment later he could enter. 

Dot was sitting on the floor fully dressed, watching the energy drain. "Close the door," she told him. "I don't want Enzo to wake up." 

Bob figured that if Enzo was going to wake up, he would have done it before then, but he carefully slid the door shut before joining Dot on the floor. He looked at her, but she was so fixated on the shower he felt awkward. 

"It was a mistake," she said matter of factly, and Bob felt like she had punched him. 

"Why?" he asked, and she just stared more intently at the energy stream. "Crash it, Dot! Why?" 

"It should never have happened," she said. There was anger in her voice, but it was a ghost, hollow and fleeting. "I was feeling lonely, vulnerable, and you–" 

"Is *that* what this is about?" Bob said. "Because it seemed to me like you wanted–" 

"I did." 

"Then *what* –" He put a hand to his head and sighed. "You're going to have to explain this to me," he said through gritted teeth. 

She put a finger underneath the shower, and watched as the energy bounced around the digit. "You wouldn't understand." 

"Of course not!" The anger in his voice was hardly hollow or fleeting, but it didn't do much to hide the hurt. "How am I supposed to understand when you just paste that default-answer instead of telling me anything!" 

Her whole palm was now under the stream, and energy filled the creases and ran off between her fingers. "I can't have a relationship," she said. "This wasn't supposed to happen right now." 

"Why not?" he said. "Is it scheduled somewhere else in that User buffered organizer? Nine-thousand twenty - go over databank stats. Nine-thousand thirty – meeting with Phong. Nine-thousand forty – screw with Bob's head?" 

"No!" she said, deeply insulted. "You're being BASIC. Enzo–" 

"Enzo loves me!" Bob told her. "You know he does. Don't try to make this about him!" 

She punched her fist into the floor under the shower, splattering the room with glowing droplets. "Go log yourself off, Bob. You're so full of yourself–" 

"Me!" 

"Some of us can't afford to go and do whatever random thing occurs to us at the nano, but then I knew you wouldn't understand about things like responsibility. It's probably in the Guardian code somewhere to run about having meaningless–" 

"It wasn't meaningless," he said. "At least, not to me. You're the one pushing *me* away." 

"And if you could let me finish one sentence–" 

"Why?" he demanded. "So you can yell some more about how irresponsible and random I am?" 

"I can't believe you thought I'd trust you with part of my city!" 

"I just saved the *entire* city!" 

"And I suppose that means you earned some sort of reward." 

They sat there, seething. Bob was the first to get up. "Fine!" he said. "You win, Dot. Congratulations. I'll leave you to your predictable, pre-planned life, and if you have an emergency scheduled in there somewhere, Phong knows my keytool." He slammed the door behind him – and if Enzo chose *that* cue to wake up, they'd be lucky. Once outside, he pulled out his zipboard and headed back to his apartment.   


Dot caught up with him halfway there. "What now?" he asked tiredly. "You process a really good insult that only works in person?" 

She didn't respond for a nanosecond. "I think it's fair to say we were both being ASCII's," she finally said. 

"*I* don't," Bob said, but something in her glare told him this was the closest thing he was going to get to an apology from her, so he gestured for her to continue. 

"What happened between us - that was a mistake." She sighed. "But I don't know if I want to lose you because of it." She looked at him. "Still friends?" 

Bob didn't think they'd ever really been just friends, not since that first moment when they had both been young and alone and afraid. "Yeah," he told her. "Friends." 

She nodded, and a small smile pulled at her lips. "You still good for picking up Enzo this cycle?" 

"Sure," he said, forcing himself to keep his tone light. "If you think I can handle the responsibility." 

The smile froze into something pained. 

"I'll be there," he promised. 

"Thanks, Bob," she said. Her eyes met his, and it seemed for a moment that there was something else she wanted to say, but then she turned around on her zipboard and headed back. 

Bob watched her go until she disappeared between the buildings and felt old and alone and tired. On his arm, Glitch whirled sadly and clicked a few times. "I know," Bob said. "I know." But there was nothing left to do but go home. 


End file.
